The Week in Review

We’ll start from Tuesday and fast forward to today, since I didn’t get to let you guys in on some fun things that happened this week.

Tuesday- we welcomed Camo to our family of horses. Jill left him with us last year because they have a personality conflict. We traded Jill a horse that we call T.O (registered as Little Man Answered) and then we’re putting some rides on him for her in exchange for her wintering my old horse, Zero, in Texas at her house. Zach started Camo as a 2yo colt and then I rode him again last year. We both really like him and we’re very glad to own him. I played with Lucy on the ground and just worked on getting her to be softer in the face and more responsive so she’d lead better and bend around and disengage her hips with very little help from me to do so. I sat on the fence while I did this so she’d get used to seeing someone sit over top of her. In the meantime Zach rode an outside horse and worked T.O.

Wednesday- I got Lucy in to the barn today and was able to spend some time with her. I got her saddled and did so from the off side (which for you non-horse folks is the right side). I stepped on and off her on both sides and sat on her and rubbed her. Wednesday night I made some more jewelry and let me tell you- it’s so pretty! I’ll post photos of the jewelry shortly.

Thursday- I made more jewelry and I felt like it was finally nice enough for me to go run. So I ran/walked 4 miles. The kids had a long weekend, so Zach got the kids that afternoon, and while he ran up to get them, I finished my jewelry and cleaned up that big mess.

Friday- We (Kelsey, Zach, me) started halter-breaking the weanlings. But before I helped with that, I rode Shuttle. It was a gorgeous day outside (about 60) and dry enough in the arena to lope circles. So that is what we did. I absolutely love that mare. She rode really, really good. While I was riding, Ty was in the barn with his dad (Zach) riding his pony Lil Banjo. And when they were done riding they halterbroke Ty’s colt, Stitch. That afternoon, Kelsey and I went to move some cows that had gotten out on Thursday. We had to put them in the next pasture to the north. Gump was way full of himself that day! After that I took over a filly that Zach had just haltered.

We had planned a little guitar jam session for Friday night, and I was going to make fajitas and homemade black bean salsa and queso, so after I finished with that filly, I headed the half mile south, to the house to start supper. It turned out really good- homegrown, grassfed beef roundsteak, seasoned with cajun spices and lime juice was a great substitute for flank steak. We fed Zach’s brother, Bud, his wife Kirsten, Zach’s Mom and Dad, his other brother Guthrie, Kelsey and Zach’s nephew, Jade. We had about 12 people in on our jam session. A good time was had by all! I crashed out early, at about 1am because I had a massive sinus headache.

Saturday- the day got off to a fairly early start. I went to Pierre with Zach and his dad, to a cow sale. But the sale was not Saturday. We had missed it! It was Friday. Nonetheless we got a few groceries (and the Twilight movie) so the trip wasn’t entirely wasted. When we got back to the ranch, Gump and I loped some circles in the arena. Then I rode Shuttle. I absolutely cannot get to a barrel race soon enough. That mare gets better everyday. That evening we watched Twilight. I loved it. I cannot wait to see it again! And I will be reading the books in the very near future!

Today, we had our first calf born! An adorable, velvety-black, heifer calf. Well what baby calf isn’t adorable? So we can now officially say that we’re now calving. Lots of other folks have already had that good fortune, but around here we like to wait until the weather gets warmer and nicer. I will try to take photos of her tomorrow, assuming that we aren’t having a blizzard. We are supposed to have a blizzard starting tomorrow, through Tuesday night. We’ve been graced with thunderstorms and rain off an on all day, with lots of wind (read: wind advisory) from the South.

Whew. That turned into sort of a novel. I hope everyone else in bloggyland had as good a past week as I did!